The Particular Comfort of Lemon Cake
by MustLoveMustyPages
Summary: Sansa has taken to showing up at Jon's door after fights with her boyfriend, Joffrey. So he's not entirely surprised to see her again, but this time, he finds out things are a little different when he gets a call from Robb. Modern AU. (Main characters: Sansa, Jon, Robb, Arya, and Gendry)
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

 **The Particular Comfort of Lemon Cake series will be comprised of six interconnected one-shots, involving the characters of Jon Snow, Sansa Stark, Robb Stark, Arya Stark, and Gendry Waters (the main perspective of each entry will vary, but they will all be focused on the same storyline). Some fics will be focused mainly on platonic ships (sibling and friendship) and some will be more romantic in nature.**

 **Written for Game of Ships "Seven Hells Challenge": June 22: Lust (Part 1), June 23: Envy (Part 2), June 24: Gluttony (Part 3), June 25: Wrath (Part 4), June 26: Sloth (Part 5), July 3: Fill Day (Part 6)**

 **While I did my best to keep to each day's "hell," some may be stretching it just a bit for the purposes of keeping up the plot (sorry!).**

* * *

There was a familiar knock on the door. If a knock had the ability to be distinct and identifiable to one person. Which, Jon thought, as he rose from his sofa where he'd been reading, was totally possible since he knew exactly who he would find on the other side.

He couldn't help the sigh that escaped his lips at the thought, and it wasn't because he didn't want to see said person. If anything, recognizing the knock made him tread over to the door even faster. No, he could admit to himself that he always felt a small thrill at hearing the tentative, but solid knock; it was just the reason _for_ the knock in the first place that made him uncharacteristically angry .

And sure enough, when he finally reached the door and pulled it open, he was greeted by a tear-streaked face and a pair of beautiful, but puffy, blue eyes. "Hi," she murmured, attempting a smile, but instead crumpling again into quiet sobs.

It was a show of much restraint on Jon's part that he didn't charge from the apartment right then and there, find Joffrey Baratheon, and pummel him into the ground. He'd imagined doing so many times over, and so far picturing it in his mind was enough to hold him back. But just barely.

Unclenching his hands which he'd unconsciously tightened into fists at his side, he motioned for her to come in, something that had over the course of the past year become as familiar to him as her knock.

He heard her let out a puff of air in relief, and he wondered if she was worried that one of these days he would no longer let her in. The chance that she might even be thinking that made something clench in his gut, because she would always, always be welcome.

Partly because, despite Jon questioning why she would ever stay with a boyfriend who made her this upset, he couldn't help but be pleased that she came to him of all people. And partly because he held onto some pathetic hope that one of these days she would knock on his door without tears in her eyes and without a Joffrey Baratheon to get away from.

Given that, he _could_ never and _would_ never turn her away.

But just like how he never quite got up the courage to give her a hug, despite how much his heart broke at seeing her in such a distraught state, he also couldn't find a way to vocalize how he felt without sounding like a total creep. Instead, he said, "I picked up some fresh lemons from the supermarket yesterday."

He held his breath waiting, worried about her reaction, but it turned out that was exactly the right thing to say if the genuine, albeit small, smile Sansa Stark gave him in response was any indication.

* * *

He was currently watching his baking partner assemble makeshift ramekins from aluminum foil, having finished mixing the batter up only a moment before. Just as Jon had decided to be alarmed later about just how efficient she had gotten at making the things, his phone rang. Eyeing his hands covered in flour, he groaned, then promptly got hit in the face with a flying towel.

Sansa giggling at his response made his heart do a funny flip inside his chest, which he decided would be best to just completely ignore.

"Thanks," he laughed, wiping his hands clean and rushing to pick up the phone. He was in such a hurry that he didn't even check to see who it was, for fear of missing the call. "Hello?"

"Jon?"

He recognized his best friend's voice instantly, and apparently so did the girl across from him, who paused in her aluminum foil creation and stiffened. She turned her wide eyes to him and ripped her hands away from the foil as if she had been scalded.

"Jon? Are you still there?"

Giving what he hoped was a comforting look to Sansa, Jon coughed and said, "Yeah, sorry. What's up?"

"I need your help," Robb growled and Jon wasn't sure that he had ever heard his friend quite so angry.

He felt a sense of dread wash over him and noticed how Sansa had started fiddling with the sleeves of her jacket. A jacket she had not yet taken off despite having been at his apartment going on an hour. Her gloves were still on, too. Sansa had always complained about how cold his place was, so he hadn't thought much of it before. Now he cursed himself silently for being so dense.

Jon took a step forward. "What happened?" He didn't know if he was asking Robb or Robb's sister, but he had a feeling their answers would be the same.

Sansa opened her mouth to speak when Jon realized Robb had already started explaining. He caught the end portion of "...her ex-boyfriend Joffrey, remember him?"

"Yeah, I remember him." He waited until Sansa was looking him directly in the eye before asking, "Do you need help in beating him up?"

In front of him, Sansa's noticeably paled. On the phone, Robb laughed, then quickly sobered. "No, Arya and I already took care of him. I need your help finding Sansa."

The girl in question was obviously still listening in, because at those words she immediately stepped back from the counter and looked ready to run. Before she could move another inch, Jon's arm darted out and pinned her hand down with his own. She tried to wriggle from his grasp, but he held firm.

Robb apparently took Jon's lack of response to mean that he needed further convincing. "Look man... she broke up with him over a month ago." This revelation caused Jon to blink long and hard, loosening his grip somewhat on Sansa. She didn't pull her hand back, though, just nodded in confirmation.

That put him in uncharted territory. Sansa had been to his apartment a handful of times in the past year, sure. But only after particularly rough arguments with her boyfriend at the time, and even if they had broken up when she'd visited Jon, by the next day they were always back together again. This time was different.

Only to further confirm his suspicions that this wasn't just another lover's quarrel, Sansa began to shake under Jon's hand, and looking back up he realized she had started crying again. Meanwhile, Robb continued his explanation, "The three of us were out catching a movie and Sansa went up to go to the restroom." Robb sucked in a breath, causing a brief hiss of static to crackle over the line. "When she didn't come back for thirty minutes, Arya went out to check on her."

As he thought over what he was hearing, Jon gently removed the glove covering Sansa's left hand. He instantly clamped his jaw shut, having expected what he saw, but still wishing that he wasn't seeing the red blood caked under her fingernails. "And then Arya came running back in down the aisle yelling about Joffrey. When I got out into the lobby, Sansa was gone and Joffrey was writhing on the floor with a bloody nose." Jon ran a thumb over Sansa's knuckles absentmindedly and she sucked in a breath. "There were scratch marks all over his face and neck, man."

"Did you get a shot in?"

"Yes." One word never held so much meaning. "So will you help?"

Jon paused and looked up at Sansa's face, surprised but relieved to see that she had stopped crying. Her expression clearly said how she felt about what Jon was intending to do, but when he wrapped his hand around hers and gave a comforting squeeze, he saw her resolve crack. "She's with me."

"I know it's really late and everything, but... wait, what?" Robb exclaimed.

"Sansa's here at my apartment," Jon said, then hung up the phone. He gave a long look at the girl in front of him. "You know you're going to have to tell him everything that happened."

When Sansa pulled her hand away, he felt an unexplainable sense of loss coupled with a renewed worry that she was going to run again. That's just what he needed - Robb arriving at his apartment to find his sister gone and demanding explanations of why she was even there in the first place.

Instead, Sansa glared at him as she took off her other glove and then her coat. "I know." Her mouth quirked upwards into a smirk. "But I'm still expecting lemon cakes."

* * *

 _ **Title inspired by the book "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake"**_

 **Let me know what you think! I appreciate any and all feedback.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary:**

 **Arya calls Gendry for a ride and while she waits she has some realizations.**

 **Author's Note:**

 **Although Jon and Sansa do not appear in this part, it is a continuation of the story started in Part 1. Part 3 will return to Jon and Sansa with the addition of Robb.**

* * *

In the past, if prodded, Arya Stark would have sworn left and right that she had never been jealous of her older sister. On the contrary, she would have told whoever was asking that Sansa was shallow, only concerned with superficial stuff like her appearance and social standing - things Arya didn't care about one bit.

But Sansa was also smart, beautiful, and practically everyone liked her. Arya, on the other hand, had trouble with numbers, was nicknamed "horse face," and generally made enemies rather than friends of most of those around her. It was only recently that Arya had been able to accept herself as she was, and finally admit that growing up she'd always kind of been envious of Sansa. In that simple-minded way that younger siblings tended to be, Arya had only been able to see her sister for her individual qualities and not for her person as a whole.

It never seemed like Sansa had to try at anything. Life just came easy to her and for a long time, Arya had begrudged her for it, thinking that Sansa got everything she wanted. But tonight made her realize she had been completely wrong. Sansa didn't have the one thing she truly wanted – a happily ever after.

When they were children, Sansa liked to fantasize about her future and would say that her one dream in life was to find a good man and fall in love. And yet, while Sansa had succeeded in practically every other aspect of her life, she had still not found her good man.

Mentally, Arya went through a list of Sansa's past boyfriends.

While for the majority of their relationship, Harry had seemed alright, in the end he had shown his true character by cheating on her and getting the other girl pregnant. Petyr had been a short-lived horror of a thing given that he was their father's age, and it only lasted a few weeks until Robb found out and promptly put an end to it. Then after Petyr there was Sandor, who had been the strangest of the lot just because he and Sansa could not have been more different; Arya was still surprised it had lasted as many months as it had, but she was not surprised when it ended with Sandor going to jail after getting into yet another bar fight.

Then came her most recent boyfriend – Joffrey. To say that Sansa's dating history was not the best before Joffrey was an understatement. So it was really saying something that far and away, Joffrey was the worst of Sansa's significant others.

In fact, Arya would have no qualms about declaring Joffrey to be the most vile person she had ever met.

Just after Arya graduated high school about a year ago, she'd moved into the second bedroom in Sansa's apartment. Aside from being worried about getting along with her sister, Arya's primary concern about moving in was that she'd have to be around Sansa's boyfriends 24/7. She had been rather uncomfortable at the thought of them being in the apartment all of the time because, well, they were all total creeps.

However, it turned out that her concern was for naught. Arya didn't know how she'd managed to luck out, but not once in the time that she'd lived there had any of Sansa's significant others been there when Arya was home.

The sound of a car door shutting snapped Arya from her thoughts. She hadn't even noticed the black car pulling up by the sidewalk.

Gendry appeared moments later, walking around the front of his car and taking a seat beside Arya on the bench that she had been occupying for the past half hour. "You look like you're doing some serious thinking there."

"Sansa's boyfriends are never around when I'm at the apartment!" The words tumbled out before she could stop them and Gendry raised his eyebrows at her random outburst. "It's just..." she said slowly, trying to think of how to say what she meant without having to go through a full explanation.

Gendry didn't seem to think her train of thought was all that strange, though. One of the many reasons Arya liked having him around – she rarely had to explain herself to him because he always seemed to understand where she was coming from. "I overheard Sansa telling Robb once that she never brought them to the apartment because she knew you didn't like them." The way Gendry's mouth was pressed into a thin line belied the fact that he didn't much like Sansa's choice in boyfriends either. He cleared his throat and added, "And she said she didn't want to make you feel uncomfortable in your own home."

Arya sat back in her seat, wondering how she had never realized it before - that Sansa was trying to protect her. She considered all of the times she'd thought Sansa was a horrible sister, longing for nothing more than to see someone come around and knock her off her pedestal.

And tonight someone finally had, and Arya couldn't feel any worse.

A wave of guilt washed over her thinking about it and, needing a distraction, Arya glanced over at Gendry who had been sitting beside her in silence, letting her mull over what he'd told her. There was a paper bag in one of his hands that she hadn't noticed before when he was walking over from his car. "What's that?"

Gendry smiled as he lifted the bag and Arya noticed the emblem on the front from her favorite restaurant. "You sounded upset on the phone, and I figured you could use some food."

Arya was more than a little touched by the gesture and patted Gendry affectionately on the shoulder. "You're the best. Seriously," she said, before ripping the bag from his hands, causing him to snort. She sighed in happiness upon seeing the burger inside and promptly dug it out. "I didn't get to finish my popcorn at the theater and I'm starving!"

After she had taken a couple of bites, Gendry swung an arm up to rest on the bench behind her. "Now… not that I minded you calling me… of course you can always do that. But are you ever going to tell me what's going on? When you were on the phone, well, I've never heard you sound like that before." His eyebrows were furrowed in concern. She had not been at her best when she'd called him, asking him to come pick her up half hysterical. Arya had calmed down a lot in the past thirty minutes.

She chewed thoughtfully for a moment. "On your way here, Robb called me and everything's fine now." She tilted her head to the side, considering. "I mean, everything's better now." At Gendry's expectant gaze, she knew he was not going to let her get away with that poor attempt at an explanation, and really, after driving all the way over here, he deserved the full story.

She set down her burger. "Wow, now I know this is serious," Gendry joked.

Arya rolled her eyes. "Yeah. Um... so you know how we were going to watch that new action flick?" Gendry nodded. "Well, we were still in the previews when Sansa got up to use the restroom. She didn't come back for a while and by then the movie had already started, so Robb sent me out to look for her. At the time I was so peeved, but now..." She trailed off, not wanting to think about what would have happened if she hadn't gone to check on her sister.

Arya started as Gendry slipped his arm around her shoulder, but she automatically leaned into him. "Is Sansa okay?"

At his question, Arya shrugged. "When I got to the lobby, Joffrey was there and he was... he was forcing himself on her."

At that, Gendry's arm around Arya tightened, pulling her in closer. She wondered if he even realized he was doing it.

"Sansa's tall, but Joffrey was just so much stronger. I ran over and yanked him off of her. Gave him a good punch in the stomach." She smiled at the image of seeing Joffrey fall to the ground in pain. "Sansa ran. I guess she was spooked." Arya would have been too if that had happened to her. "Robb and I split up to try and find her. I was calling you to ask if you'd help. Sorry, I guess I didn't exactly get the words out during our call."

More like Arya had been so furious she'd barely muttered a full sentence into the phone before Gendry asked where she was and promised to be there soon.

"Did Robb find her then?"

Arya shook her head, laughing, and Gendry looked at her expectantly to explain what was so funny. "Nope. Jon did. Or, well, I guess Jon didn't find Sansa, but Sansa found Jon?" She shook her head, not sure exactly of the details on that one, but she would definitely be getting the scoop later. "When Robb called about fifteen minutes ago to let me know he was going over to Jon's place, he asked if I wanted him to swing around and pick me up, but I told him you were coming." She looked at Gendry to make sure that that had been okay.

"I'm glad you called, even though Sansa turned out to be fine," Gendry said, and Arya was relieved to hear in his voice that he actually meant it. She had been worried about calling him so late and ruining his night, but she'd really needed him. "So what now?"

Arya mulled it over before answering. "On the phone, Robb made it sound like Sansa wasn't hurt, but still… I need to go to Jon's and see my sister for myself."

"As my lady commands," Gendry said, standing up and bowing with an exaggerated flourish of his hand.

"I really need to get my own car."

Gendry gave a mock look of outrage. "Yeah, but then how am I ever going to spend time with you if you're not calling me in the middle of the night to be your personal chauffeur?"

Arya punched him in the arm, grinning. "Jerk."

She followed him to his car, sliding into the passenger seat. As she went to buckle up, though, she had a sudden thought. "Actually, can we make another stop first? There's something else I need to do."

Gendry nodded, looking over his shoulder before pulling out onto the main street. "Where to?"

* * *

 **Thank you** **to** **everyone who left a review on the previous chapter! I really appreciate it. (Stevengem, casema, SN2797)**

 **Let me know what you think about part 2! Feedback is always welcome.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary:**

 **Jon and Sansa eat a lot of cake while explaining things to Robb.**

* * *

Robb looked on as Sansa took yet another lemon cake from the tray on the coffee table and carefully tore off a piece. Jon was a little less delicate in his eating, just biting the thing in half, crumbs falling onto his lap. In a different situation, the stark contrast between the two would have made Robb laugh, but he was still on edge from the night's events.

"I don't know how you two can eat right now." Although he had calmed down considerably from when he'd first arrived at Jon's apartment, Robb's stomach was still unsettled and even at just the thought of eating he felt queasy.

Jon looked nonplussed at the comment, though, and just shrugged. Swallowing, he waved his half-eaten lemon cake in Sansa's direction, spilling more crumbs on his clothes. "San is always hungry after a fight."

There were still over a dozen pastries left on the tray in front of them, and there had been twice as many when Robb arrived. Sansa finished the cake in her hand and nodded in agreement. Robb looked back and forth between the two in confusion, wondering what he'd missed.

He found himself glancing into the kitchen where he could still see the cake ingredients and mixing bowl out on the counter, then turning back to his sister and best friend sitting across from him, finally taking in the full meaning of the latter's statement.

"What do you mean by always?" he asked, eyes narrowing. Jon happened to conveniently have a mouth full of food at that exact moment and could not respond, so Robb looked to Sansa instead.

His sister hesitated to answer him, taking her time to clean her fingers with a napkin. "I come here sometimes when I'm... upset," she eventually said, choosing her words carefully.

Robb's mind jumped back to the wording Jon had used a minute ago. 'San is always hungry after a fight.' San? he thought, but aloud he asked, "Fight?" He tried and failed at keeping his voice from sounding tense, imagining a repeat of what Joffrey had done to Sansa at the movie theater.

"Verbal. Verbal fights," Jon clarified, and although that served to ease the tension in Robb's shoulders slightly, it wasn't much of a comfort to find out that Sansa had been having problems that he didn't know about. As if reading his mind Jon added, "I would have told you if it was more than that…" Jon squared his shoulders and made a point of holding Robb's gaze as he said the next part. "Whatever else you may think, it's important to me that you at least believe that if I thought Sansa was in trouble, I would have never kept it from you."

"Okay," Robb said, the word coming out harsher than he'd intended, making both Jon and Sansa flinch. He couldn't let his anger get the best of him. Deep down, Robb believed Jon, but on the surface, he was still buzzing with anger at Joffrey, and hearing that his best friend had been keeping a secret from him only added fuel to the existing fire. Taking a deep breath, he looked to Sansa, trying again. "Okay... So when you got into arguments with Joffrey you'd… what? Come to Jon's and make lemon cakes?"

While the question sounded sort of ridiculous out loud, Sansa just shrugged, mirroring exactly what Jon had done earlier. "Basically. The first time, I actually went to your place initially and when you weren't there…" She paused, noticing the instant the look of guilt formed on her brother's face. "Stop that! This isn't your fault." Robb worked hard to relax his frown, and Sansa stared at him until she was convinced that he'd let it go. "Like I said, you weren't home, and Jon was the next closest person I could think of, so I went to his apartment."

Robb furrowed his eyebrows. "But Jon doesn't live anywhere near me anymore. Theon would have been much closer of a walk..." He trailed off, thinking about the brief month where Jon had lived on the same block as him before moving to a cheaper place across town. "This has been going on for over a year?"

Hearing the outrage in his voice, Sansa cringed and Jon tilted his head to look up at the ceiling, dragging a hand through his messy head of curls.

"I can't believe you kept this from-" Robb started, but Sansa quickly cut him off.

"Don't act like this is some big betrayal," she said defensively. "We didn't do anything wrong, but if you want to blame someone, blame me! I was the one who kept coming back."

Neither Robb nor Jon had anything to say to that.

Sansa sighed. "Look, I think we can all recognize that I haven't had the best track record when it comes to men, what with Petyr and Sandor and..."

There was a snort and it took Robb a second to realize it had come from Jon, but by then Sansa had already leaned over and swatted at him. "Shut it."

When she straightened back in her seat, she returned to where she'd left off. "Like I was saying, I may not have the best track record, but that doesn't mean I need to be reminded of it every five seconds. I swear I was planning on telling you after the first time, but I really didn't want to deal with all of your questions."

Sansa held up a hand before Robb could defend himself. "I get it - it's what you're supposed to do. You're my big brother. But that doesn't mean that I have to like it." She motioned to Jon to make the distinction clear. "He's not my brother. He doesn't have the same obligations as you. Still, he has been there for me when I needed someone who wasn't going to be judgmental…" Noticing the irony, Sansa gave Jon a pointed look, but it was obvious she was fighting back a smile.

"And he made you lemon cakes," Robb added, knowing how fond his sister was of the things. He wasn't surprised that Jon knew that too, but he was surprised that Jon had taken part in baking them. Robb didn't know Jon even knew how to bake.

"Yeah, and that, too," Sansa admitted, the smile winning out and taking over her whole face.

Something loosened in Robb's chest at the sight of it. It was the first smile he'd seen from her all night. Robb wasn't always the most observant, but he hadn't missed the fact that Sansa's eyes were still slightly puffy from crying and that she kept her fingers curled into themselves as if keeping the evidence from being seen would make everyone forget about it.

He found himself smiling back at her on instinct, but that didn't make it any less genuine. Then he redirected his smile to Jon, trying to convey in one look everything that he was thinking. There would be more time to talk later when it was just the two of them, but right at that moment, he needed to show Jon that he understood. And even more, that he appreciated everything he'd done for Sansa.

Thankfully Jon seemed to sense what Robb was trying to do, because, after a while of searching his expression, he grinned. Then he reached out for yet another piece of cake, and all three dissolved into laughter.

* * *

 **Thank you to everyone who has read this so far, and a special thanks to those who have commented! We're half way through... let me know what you think.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary:**

 **Arya and Gendry arrive at Jon's apartment, find out exactly what's been happening, and have a small reveal of their own.**

 **Author's Note:**

 **My apologies for disappearing for a few days. I had some internet issues so that I wasn't able to post on the Tumblr challenge page on the designated date. I was going to wait until "Fill Day" to post the remaining three chapters, but that seemed like such a long way off. Also, I'm not really pleased with this chapter whatsoever, so I needed to just get it up so I could move on (I'll probably come back in the future and rework it, but for now it is what it is).**

* * *

" _See..._ Arya and Gendry are eating," Sansa told Robb with a smirk gracing her lips.

Robb didn't reply, instead choosing to watch as the youngest two in the room tossed pieces of cake up in the air for the other person to catch in their mouth. After Gendry threw a particularly short pass, to which Arya had jokingly told her friend to get his act together, Robb couldn't help but note the drastic change in behavior from when she'd first entered the apartment that night.

Yes, Arya was her usual easy-going self _now_ , but a few minutes prior when Jon had opened the door to let them in, Arya had immediately rushed to Sansa with uncharacteristic concern. Arya had disregarded her sister's attempts to shoo her away and gave Sansa a lengthy once over to ensure that she was, in fact, still intact. Then she'd grabbed her hands to examine, no doubt having seen the scratches on Joffrey's face. Robb knew Sansa had scrubbed them thoroughly, but there must have been enough blood remaining, because, after a few seconds of inspection, Arya had nodded her approval and given her sister a one-armed hug.

Sansa had looked entirely uncomfortable at the unusual attention she was receiving from Arya and mumbled, "I'm fine, really."

Arya seemed to have come to the same conclusion as well because she'd dropped Sansa's hands, and upon spotting the food on the table, exclaimed, "Oh! Is that lemon cake?"

Jon had helped them drag chairs in from the kitchen, despite Arya and Gendry's protests that they'd be more comfortable on the floor. As they did so, Robb had gotten them up to speed on what they'd missed. He had hoped, although not expected, either Jon or Sansa to chime in, but neither had said a word through his explanation.

He was also hoping, as he now got to the part about Sansa secretly coming to Jon's for some time, that he could finally share in his shock with someone else. But that hope was quickly stomped out when Arya didn't bat a single eyelash at the reveal. She simply paused after tossing a piece of cake to Gendry and shot an unreadable glance at Jon. "I knew it."

Robb straightened his chair, asking her incredulously, "You already knew?"

Before answering, Arya dove forward and snatched a flying, yellow square from the air with her front teeth. "Not exactly," she said, mouth full of cake. After receiving a glare from her older sister, she took a moment to swallow before continuing. "I mean, after you told me on the phone that Sansa was here, I just connected the dots." At that, it was everyone else's turns to look surprised. "What? I can be perceptive when I want to be!" she huffed. "Plus, I hadn't seen Sansa cry in _forever,_ either meaning that she wasn't fighting with Joffrey anymore..." Arya wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Or she was crying somewhere else."

"Alright, alright," Sansa intervened. "You're making it sound like I never do anything _but_ cry!" There was a beat of silence and Sansa sniffed indignantly. "Fine! But it's a much healthier coping mechanism than beating people up." She squinted and turned her attention to everyone in the room, one by one, ending on her companion on the sofa to whom she gave a particularly meaningful look.

Jon paled, mumbling, "I didn't know you knew about that."

Sansa rolled her eyes. "Of course, I knew! Even an idiot could have put the pieces together when the day after coming to your apartment, Joffrey showed up to class with a black eye," she snapped.

Robb remembered the incident in question because it had been hard not to stare at the huge, hideous bruise on the young Baratheon's face as he'd passed by him in the quad. At the time, Robb had wished he himself had been the one to do it, but he supposed finding out it had been his best friend who'd thrown the punch was the next best thing.

Speaking of his friend, he focused back on Jon to find him looking regretful, but not at the actual punching part, only at the fact that Sansa had found out. "I'm not sorry I did it," he told her, expression hard.

"Nor am I," Sansa responded quietly, so quietly she probably hadn't intended for anyone else to hear. They shared a secretive smile that had Robb feeling like, not for the first time that night, he was missing something important.

Jon snapped his head back up, as if just realizing that all of the attention was on the two of them. A hint of red colored his cheeks, and he tried to divert the focus away on someone else. "So, Arya, what took you so long to get here?"

"Yeah," Sansa said, and Jon visibly relaxed as she picked up the new direction of conversation without missing a beat. "Robb said he called you over an hour ago. What took the two of you so long to get here?"

It was an incredibly enjoying sight to see Arya flustered since she was so rarely caught off guard. "Uh… I had to make a little trip first," she said, avoiding her sister's eye, and glancing around the room until her gaze landed on the coffee table. "You know, Sansa's right Robb... You _are_ the odd one out." She grabbed a lemon cake off the tray and shoved it forcefully at her brother.

Amused, Robb raised an eyebrow but complied. "There," he said, making a big show of taking a small bite, even though he was still not in any mood to eat. "Now that we've taken care of everyone's sudden concern for my eating habits, can you continue?"

Arya looked like she wished a hole would appear in the middle of the room and swallow her up. Then Sansa suddenly gasped, causing Jon to jump a little. "Arya, you didn't!"

Although the two sisters always boasted that they were nothing alike, they were able to read each other surprisingly well.

Apparently, Jon had come to be able to read Sansa too, because after frowning at her face for a moment, he turned to Arya, who had stationed her chair beside the sofa, and patted her on the head like a puppy who had pleased its owner.

Gendry looked at Arya with a fond smile. "You should have seen her. It was _brilliant_." His voice held a sort of awe and Robb could tell exactly when Arya took note of it, because his sister, Ms. I'm Never Having a Boyfriend, actually blushed in response.

Robb, realizing he was once again the only one still in the dark, shouted, "Would someone mind telling me what's going on?!"

He didn't have to wait long to get his answer.

"I can't believe you did that!" Sansa shrieked, standing up from the sofa and appearing as though she were about to strangle Arya. "You went to Robert? The mayor?!" Her eyes were wide and furious. "Why? You had absolutely _no_ right to do that!"

Arya was not going to be cowed, putting on a fierce mask of her own and throwing her hands up in the air. "I had _every_ right! You're my sister and that psycho hurt you!"

Obviously taken aback by Arya's words, Sansa could only manage to sink back down on the sofa. Robb could see the protests fall away as her eyes softened and her shoulders slackened.

Sometimes it was easy to forget that beneath all of the fighting, deep down the two girls really did love each other.

There was a considerable lull in the conversation after that, eventually prompting Jon to ask, "So... what did Mr. Baratheon say?" Everyone turned to Arya and Gendry, wondering the exact same thing, although Sansa looked more reluctant than the rest to hear what had happened.

The answering smile on Arya's face at the posed question was so sharp and deadly, that Robb couldn't help but think that they all needed to be very concerned when Arya became a full-fledged adult. _If not already._ She was only eighteen and yet Robb had the feeling that if she wanted to, she could take every single one of them down with just a glance.

* * *

 **I've got the startings of the final two parts, but I'm still working on them. Look for those soon!**

 **Thanks for reading and reviewing. I love hearing what everyone thinks!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary:**

 **The next morning, Arya and Sansa have tea and discuss some things.**

 **Author's Note:**

 **As promised... two months ago (whoops!) here is the fifth part.**

 **The reason for the delay is made up of several things, mostly my computer dying, finishing up my Auditing class, buying a new computer, moving from my apartment back home, and graduating college. None of which are a good excuse for this taking so long because I should have found the time, but I can't change the past now.**

* * *

Arya was just turning on the electric kettle when Sansa stumbled out of her bedroom, looking bleary-eyed and not yet fully awake.

Opening the cabinet door to her right, Arya pulled out two mugs and set them down on the kitchen table. Then she leaned back against the counter and crossed her arms as she peered over at her sister.

"You look terrible."

And it was true. Arya was very tempted to take a picture for proof that Sansa Stark didn't always look perfect, but just this once she decided to give her sister a pass. Plus, she knew that last week Sansa had taken some less than flattering pictures of Arya herself and would prefer not to have them forwarded to Sansa's entire contact list. Of which, a year ago when Arya had moved in, Gendry had found his way onto said contact list.

So instead she just continued to stare at her sister, trying to commit it to memory forever. Now whenever she was having a rough time of it, she could just pull up this image of her sister with her rat nest hair and instantly feel better.

It took quite a long time for Sansa to form a coherent response, frowning at Arya and saying in a scratchy voice, "Thanks. I have a hangover."

Arya's eyebrows rose. "Sansa," she said slowly, as if she were speaking to a child and not her older sister. "You can't possibly have a hangover. You only drank water last night."

Sansa shot Arya an irritated look. "Not an alcohol hangover, dummy," she said, rolling her eyes. "I have a _food_ hangover."

Mm. Arya's hand went immediately to her stomach, which _had_ been feeling quite unsettled since she'd gotten up that morning. And whereas she was usually starving upon waking, the only thing that sounded good to her so far was a cup of tea.

"That actually makes sense," she admitted.

The look on Sansa's face now could most accurately be interpreted as "duh."

They had had quite a bit to eat last night. There was the popcorn at the movie before its unexpectedly abrupt ending… the burger Gendry had brought her… all of those lemon cakes at Jon's apartment. Arya also remembered vaguely other food being ordered and consumed somewhere in that equation, but couldn't recall what.

As the water in the kettle began to boil, making faint gurgling sounds, Arya walked over to the refrigerator to get some milk. There was a cardboard box sitting on the middle shelf and when she peered inside she saw a half-eaten pizza. Well, that answered the question of what else she'd eaten last night.

She had been half asleep after finishing off the lemon cakes, lulled into a peaceful nap by the conversations of her family and friends around her. And with the cold pizza to jog her memory, she did have a hazy recollection of eating a few slices in between dozing off. Arya also had a gut feeling that she'd rested her head on someone's shoulders whilst sleeping, but she didn't want to dwell too much on the implications of _that_.

With the bottle of milk in hand, Arya went to shut the fridge door when her stomach rumbled unpleasantly and she eyed the pizza regretfully. Maybe it would be better to skip the dairy this morning.

She placed it back in the fridge and then went to turn off the kettle. After pressing the "off" button, she took the kettle over to the kitchen table and sat down.

A loud chorus of rock band music began to play in the kitchen, and Sansa groaned, burrowing her head into her arms.

Arya pulled out her phone to find a new text from her older brother. "Robb wants to know if we want to get breakfast with him."

Sansa groaned again as a response.

Arya smirked, getting ready to text him back. "I'll let him know." Then her phone began ringing again. "It's Robb calling. Gosh, he's impatient." She went to answer it, then paused, pointing over Sansa's shoulder. "Hey, can you get the box of tea behind you?"

As Sansa got up to get their tea stash, Arya accepted the call. "I was just about to text you back. Sansa and I are going to pass."

On the other end of the phone, Robb gasped dramatically. "What?! Since when do you pass up food?"

"I'm not hungry," Arya said shortly, then added, "Too much to eat last night."

"But I'm going to your favorite place…" Robb sing-songed back.

Arya narrowed her eyes. "He's going to the diner," she told Sansa, but she didn't think it would make much of a difference.

As expected, Sansa turned around and harrumphed. "That jerk. He didn't eat practically anything last night. This is probably payback for everyone trying to force him to eat." Then she turned back around and reached up to get the box of tea off of the top shelf.

Arya was about to say something sarcastic back to her brother when she noticed something on her older sister. "Sansa!" she cried out in alarm, dropping her phone onto the table and circling around it.

Sansa leaned away from Arya's grasp with wide eyes. "What?!"

Slowly, Arya reached over and pulled down Sansa's nightshirt which had already shifted, exposing bare skin. On her upper arm were bruises that were distinctively in the shape of fingers. "Were you going to say anything about these?" she asked her sister with a pointed look.

As Sansa was about to open her mouth to respond, a voice came screeching out of Arya's forgotten phone. Sansa gave an amused smile and nodded to the table. "You better get that before Robb has a conniption."

Pinning Sansa with her best "we are still going to be talking about this" look, she snatched up her phone and held it to her ear. "Sorry about that."

"What's going on?" Robb's voice was heavy with concern. "Do you need to me to come over?"

Arya took a moment to study her sister, who was readjusting her nightshirt as if Robb could somehow see the bruises through the phone. She knew Robb would want to know about them, but Arya also knew that it wouldn't change what had happened. Sansa was no more in danger than before, just slightly more affected physically than Arya had realized.

"Arya?" Robb prodded.

Clearing her throat, she quickly said, "No thanks Robb. We're about to have tea. Talk to you later." Then she hung up.

Sansa, apparently deciding that she was going to let Arya be the one to broach the topic again, laid the box on the table, sat down, and began rummaging through their mish-mash of tea bags. "I'm thinking I'll just stick with English Breakfast. What kind do you want?"

"Sansa."

Her sister sucked in a breath, then plucked another tea bag labeled "Twinings: English Breakfast" from the box. "English Breakfast for the both of us then." She ripped open both of the packages and placed the bags in their respective cups. Then she went to grab the kettle but Arya stopped her, placing her hands gently overtop Sansa's. They were shaking.

Picking up the kettle, Arya poured hot water into each of their cups. "Were you going to tell anyone about the bruises?" She kept her gaze on her mug, watching as the steam rose out of it and dissipated into the air. Maybe Sansa would feel more comfortable answering if she didn't feel as much pressure.

"No," her sister answered honestly after some had passed. "I wasn't going to mention them. It's not a big deal."

Arya practically choked, even though she hadn't been drinking anything. "Not a big deal?" she rasped. "It's a _huge_ deal."

Sansa looked up from her own mug and stared at Arya. "You're misunderstanding."

"Then explain things to me," Arya replied, trying but failing to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

Sighing, Sansa plucked the tea bag from her mug and squeezed out the water. "I'm not saying that what happened last night wasn't a big deal. Of course it was. But does whether or not I have bruises change what happened?"

Arya was about to bite back that certainly _did_ change things, but then realized that that was the exact same logic she'd used to reason with herself about not needing to tell Robb. "Alright, I suppose I can sort of understand where you're coming from with that," Arya admitted. "But, that's not why you weren't telling us, was it?" When Sansa looked away again, Arya knew she was right. "You didn't tell us not because it wouldn't change what happened," she continued, working through the idea as she spoke, "But because you didn't want any of us to know. You didn't want to face our reactions."

Both sisters seemed to be surprised at this. Arya at the idea that Sansa would feel the need to hide something like this from her, and Sansa at the fact that Arya was able to figure it out.

"Can you really blame me?" Sansa asked, suddenly pushing back her chair and standing up. At first, Arya thought she was going to leave, but then Sansa just circled around the table and went to their cabinets. When she came back around and sat down, she had the sugar shaker in her hand. With forceful motions, she poured in a mound of the white, granulated stuff, and slammed the shaker back onto the table with a loud thud.

Arya took the shaker and poured a small amount into her own tea. "What happened last night… Joffrey… the bruises. None of it is something to be ashamed of."

"That's easy for you to say," Sansa muttered with a frown, stirring the sugar into her tea. When she took a sip, Arya half expected her to wince at the sweetness, but she didn't bat an eyelash. "People don't look at you like you're weak. Like you're damaged."

"No one looks at you like that. Not me, not Robb, certainly not Gendry who isn't all that great in a fight himself… Oh, I see. You're worried about how Jon sees you."

Sansa glared at her sharply. "You're delusional."

With a smug expression, Arya blew on her tea and took a sip. "Actually, after everything I've discovered in the past 24 hours, I believe that we can all acknowledge that my logic is quite sound."

Sansa didn't respond.

"Here's the deal," Arya said, leaning across the table towards her sister. "Either we talk about Joffrey or we talk about Jon. You pick, but I'm not letting you stew over there in silence."

"There's nothing to talk about concerning me and Jon."

"Please! Finding out that you've been going over to his apartment explains _everything_." Pretending to look unconcerned, Sansa sipped at her tea. "It certainly explains why for the past few months whenever we're with him he can't seem to keep his eyes off of you."

Sansa's eyes widened and she started choking on her drink. "What?" she asked, putting a hand to her chest. Even when coughing Arya could hear the faint glimmer of hope in her voice.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." She waited until Sansa had settled herself again to repeat her previous question. "So… are we going to talk about you and Jon then?"

Recovered, Sansa shot back. "I don't know, are we going to talk about you and Gendry?" Arya promptly shut her mouth at that. "Don't think I didn't notice you using his shoulder as a pillow last night."

Arya was quickly losing control of this conversation and it was gearing into places that she was definitely not discussing. _Ever._ "Fine. Fine. I won't mention it again," she said, although they both knew she was lying. "But," she added, holding up her pointer finger, "I do think you should go talk to him. He's probably still worried about you."

Sansa actually seemed to mull the suggestion over, then nodded. "I think you're right." Then she rose from the table and headed to the front door where they kept their coats and shoes.

It took Arya a moment to process what was happening. Then she jumped out of her chair and followed her sister. "Wait! You're going now?" she asked incredulously.

"If I wait too long, I won't ever get the courage to do it," Sansa said, slipping on her jacket.

"Okay, but maybe you should change into something else first…" Arya drew out. "And brush your hair."

Sansa's hand flew to the rat's nest on top of her head and her eyes bulged comically. Then she shrugged off her jacket and ran to their bathroom.

As Arya walked back to the kitchen to finish her tea, she saw a light turn on and heard a faint shriek coming from Sansa's general direction.

* * *

 **Hopefully I'll have the final part up soon, but please be patient. And thank you to everyone who has read and commented so far!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary:**

 **Sansa and Jon have a much-needed conversation, _finally._**

 **Author's Note:**

 **Who knew that when I asked everyone to be patient after Part 5 that the requested patience would be stretched over almost an entire year?**

 **Really, is there any other word that works here other than... _yikes?_ I think not.**

 **I would apologize, but that seems a little too late. I am relieved to finally get this chapter up, though, because some sort of draft has been sitting in my possession since about September of last year. At first, I put off finishing this up because I couldn't get back into the headspace of this world. Then, when I finally did manage to capture a similar tone and convey what I wanted to with the story, I put off posting it simply _because_ it had been so long since my last update. Really, I don't even make sense to myself sometimes.**

* * *

After running up the apartment complex stairs, Sansa stood at the top for a moment to slow down her racing heart. Then she walked over to the familiar door, took a deep breath, and knocked.

There was some scuffling inside as a response, and it took a full thirty seconds before Jon flung open the door.

Sansa could tell from his expression, quickly morphing from surprise into one of confusion, that he hadn't looked out the peephole before answering.

"Hi," she said, her voice almost a squeak.

Jon ran a hand through his dark hair, still looking utterly bewildered by her presence. "Hi."

"Um... could I, uh..." she stuttered, fidgeting with the buttons on the front of her coat.

Suddenly remembering his manners, Jon's eyes widened. "Oh, right..." He took a step back and gestured a hand into his apartment. "Yes, come in."

She gave him a tight smile and walked inside. "Thanks."

As Jon was shutting the door behind them, Sansa noticed that practically all of the lights were off, and Jon's wallet was perched on the back of the couch. She glanced down to find his right shoe half-laced.

"Oh! I'm sorry! I've interrupted you just as you were getting ready to leave."

Jon glanced down at his shoes in surprise as if he had entirely forgotten what he was doing before she'd arrived. "It's not a big deal-"

Sansa cut him off, moving closer to the door. "-really, I shouldn't have barged in like this-"

Jon's eyebrows rose. "I'd hardly call knocking on my door and me letting you in _barging_."

That brought Sansa up short, and Jon grinned as if he were so pleased to one-up her.

"Still, I'm intruding." Sansa took another step back towards the door, and Jon matched her taking a step forward.

"Sansa," he said, voice suddenly low.

Like a bird ready to take flight, she glanced quickly at the door knob and then at Jon gain. "I'll come back later. Actually, that's for the best because I have someplace to be right now."

"Really?" Jon asked, sounding slightly skeptical.

"Of course!" She wondered if he could hear the lie in her voice.

Whether he heard it or not, though, Jon just appeared amused. "At nine on a Saturday morning, you have someplace to be?"

With him saying it out loud, realized how ridiculous her excuse sounded. "Well, I... what about you?"

Jon frowned. "What about me?"

Feeling emboldened by finally getting a handle on the situation, she jutted her chin to his wallet and the couch and the shoe he still hadn't finished tying. "Where are you going? Why can you have someplace to be and not me?" she argued.

"I'm going to breakfast with Rob."

Sansa felt her momentary control slip from her hand. "Oh, I see." She fiddled with a button, pulling on a thread that was coming loose. "He invited Arya and me, too."

"I know," Jon replied, smug.

Clearing her throat, Sansa found herself unable to meet his gaze so instead she looked at a point right above his shoulder. " _Right._ "

"And I know that Arya said you weren't hungry, so no, you don't have any place else you should be."

Still desperate to keep face, Sansa shouted, "You don't know that!"

"Yes I do," he replied, that annoying smirk of his reappearing.

"Well, I..." Sansa felt behind her for the doorknob and quickly yanked it open. Fumbling around for a response, she realized she had nothing. "Sorry to interrupt!" she shot out, walking quickly to the stairs and racing down them.

Hearing Jon call her name caused Sansa to speed up even more, feet flying from one step to another.

When she finally got to the bottom floor and pushed open the door to outside, the cool air was a welcome relief. Sansa leaned back against the brick wall of the building and took a long, deep breath.

She definitely should not have come. Really, she had no idea what she had been thinking.

They were friends. Jon was nice to her. Nothing more.

Last night had clearly shaken her more than she'd realized. She still wasn't in her right mind.

"Confused, that's all," she muttered to herself.

She barely noticed the sound of the front door opening and closing again.

"What in the world was that?" a voice, Jon's voice, shouted behind her. He didn't seem to be nearly out of breath as she was.

Sansa spun to face him. "You followed me?" she asked, feeling off kilter by his sudden presence again. Then, to answer his question, said, "Nothing! Go to breakfast with Rob." Then she turned and walked away.

A moment later, Jon fell into step beside her. "You ran away from me," he said in disbelief. "You literally _ran_."

Sansa pretended she didn't hear him and just started walking faster. "You're going to be late meeting Rob."

"No, I'm not. We're headed in the right direction."

Sansa looked at the passing signs. _Dang it._ And so they were.

They walked in silence for a minute, during which Sansa pondered if it was possible for her to make an escape without making an even bigger fool of herself.

Jon broke the silence first. "You know, Arya texted me before you came over."

Sansa almost tripped, then turned to Jon, eyes wide. "She did what?"

Jon nodded, looking out at the mostly empty street. "Just said 'Don't let her leave.'" He shook his head, laughing. "Honestly, I had no idea what she was talking about at the time. Thought she'd texted me by mistake." His voice got suddenly quieter as he leaned in and smiled. "Then everything made sense when you 'barged' in."

Sansa swatted at him and the stupid quotation marks he made around the word "barged."

"Why did you come over, Sansa?" Blunt and to the point.

His abruptness startled her. "I just... just wanted to thank you."

"Thank me?" Jon asked, raising an eyebrow, still smiling.

Sansa nodded vigorously. "Yes. So thank you... For everything."

"Everything," Jon repeated as he tilted his head to the side, of course latching onto that last word. "You make it sound like you're going away."

Lacking a proper response, she shrugged. "Well... I probably won't be seeing you very often anymore. No more dating the bad guys. Turning over a new leaf and all that." She let out a short bark of laughter. "So I won't be bothering you at your apartment."

Jon dropped the smile in an instant. "You were never a bother."

Sansa was thrown by his sudden seriousness and didn't know how to respond. "Oh, okay. Well, still..."

"And I think you should keep coming to my apartment."

"What?" was her knee-jerk reaction to his statement. Then, realizing how that sounded, she tried again. "I mean, what are you-"

Jon cut her off. "I mean that I think you should keep coming over." He spoke slowly so there was no misunderstanding.

Sansa opened her mouth to speak, then thought better and closed it again.

"In case you're still confused," he continued, "I like spending time with you, Sansa. I just plain _like_ you." Then, without warning, he pulled her towards him and pressed his lips against hers.

It was over in a second, but it still left Sansa breathless. Jon had his hands gently cupping her face and she was sure that every inch of her skin was on fire. She finally managed to say "Okay."

He brushed his thumbs back and forth across her cheeks. "Okay, _what?"_

"Okay. I'll keep coming over. But only if you insist."

"Oh, I definitely insist," Jon whispered. He opened his mouth to say something else when a voice interrupted them.

"What in the world is going on here?" Sansa froze, recognizing instantly the voice of Robb.

Jon just groaned and dropped his head onto Sansa's shoulder dramatically. Any and all courage he'd had before seemingly evaporated into thin air. "Perfect timing," he muttered.

It took Sansa a moment to take in her surroundings and was amused to realize that they'd reached their destination without her realization. Robb was standing in the open door of the restaurant, looking on the verge of shouting again, so she gently pushed Jon off her shoulder and walked over to her brother. "Let's go inside and have a little chat."

When he started to protest, she looped her arm through his and started to lead him inside. As they were crossing the door's threshold, she quickly looked back at a panicked Jon and mouthed "call Arya." They were going to need someone else on their side for the conversation that was about to go down.

There were a billion ways this could go and Sansa had no intention of losing what she had with Jon when it had only just begun.

* * *

 **If any of you have read my other stories and are awaiting updates, I promise I haven't abandoned all of them entirely, but I have no idea when there will be an update. No promises. It's really hard to come home from work and get the motivation to write (or really, to do anything other than eat, watch reruns of various shows, and sleep). I don't know how the rest of you do it and I am constantly amazed by your ability. emSeriously./em**

 **Now, after that long note, I want to thank everyone who has read this story! Please let me know what you think. Way back in 2016 when I thought I was going to be wrapping this up shortly, I had plans for a follow-up focusing on a storyline for another character (maybe Robb and a romantic interest for him), but that's really nothing more than a stray idea right now...**


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